The Scourge of Housecats Everywhere
by VolturiSecretarialServices
Summary: Bella had given up on becoming a vampire. Once she was, she certainly didn't expect her help to come from Aro Volturi. Aro/Bella, Post New Moon AU long-ish one-shot, written in snapshots.


Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or the characters. I'm not making money from this.

*/*/*

The car accident is minor: a fender bender, if not for the shattered window. The glass spikes out of her fractured wrist, oozing blood, and Bella feels faint.

"You're lucky it didn't sever anything," the doctor says, after they've stopped the bleeding and given her a cast. "It got caught by the scar tissue of that old bite—see how it cut through the tooth line here?" He looks up with interest. "Whatever it was that bit you, it really got you good."

Bella smiles wanly at the too-curious man. His blonde hair gleams burnished gold in the fluorescents of the ER. So like another doctor she knew, once.

"Yeah," she says quietly. "I guess I was. Lucky."

*/*/*

The old scar, that wretched souvenir from James, Bella's memento of a previous life, begins to ache at times after that. Bella pushes her pen into the gap of the cast to scratch it and assumes that the ache is tissue healing.

But then the cast comes off, and it keeps happening.

Still, it's only a dull ache, and only in that one spot. Bella chalks it up to another weirdness of the scar, shoves it into the locked mental closet labeled "Vampires - Do Not Enter," and goes on with her life.

She doesn't want to think of them, ever again.

*/*/*

Bella tries to tell herself it hasn't gotten worse. And then she convinces herself that it's because of the fracture, not the scar.

It doesn't ache all the time, just when she's been doing a lot with her arms. Sometimes she wakes up and her whole arm tingles with a dull sensation that's just on the verge of unpleasant. It goes on that way for a while. Anyway, what can she do but ignore it?

Hypothetically speaking:

_Doctor, I was bitten by a vampire and now the scar is acting strangely … could you take a look at it? _

or

_Could you tell me the side effect of having your boyfriend suck the venom out of a vampire bite?_

Um, no.

*/*/*

Her birthday comes at the beginning of the new semester at UW. She is 22 and a senior majoring in Pre-Law. The system needs someone who knows what's really out there, even if she can never tell anyone. She's renting a leaky, uninsulated garage apartment from a half-deaf, incurious old woman who leaves her alone as long as she didn't complain. Mrs. Singer has at least twenty cats.

The apartment is cold in the winter and hot in the summer, but Bella loves it for the quiet.

There are no reminders here in Seattle of the things that go bump … well, all the time, really.

Bella lights the candle on her cupcake to the sounds of Mrs. Singer's soap operas, and reflects. She is now five years older than Edward Cullen.

How many more years until she looks like his mother? Grandmother?

Her whole arm hurts.

*/*/*

When she, Alice, and Edward come back from Italy, his family votes to make her a vampire. Bella forced his hand, but Edward didn't take it like she'd hoped. But when had he ever?

He vows that he'll never be with her, if she changes. Never touch her. No matter what eternal life she managed to claim through the use of his family, he swears by God it will avail her nothing.

He will leave his coven for her. This is what he will do, to protect her soul.

He will never be with Bella if she is a vampire.

Bella watches Alice's face fall, and knows: Edward's won. It's the one thing he could have done to keep her human, the ace in the hole she'd never known he had.

After all, what was eternal life, without Edward?

Less than nothing.

This time, she let them go.

*/*/*

One week into classes, the whole side of her body adjacent to the bite aches constantly, and she is popping Tylenol like they're breath mints. The site of the scar begins to feel feverish.

Something has to be done. Bella knows she can no longer lie to herself. It has to be the venom.

She makes a map of the United States, colors in the States with significantly bad weather, crosses off the states with significant sunshine. Removes the ones with no forests or national parks.

She makes a list of the hospitals. The list is far too long. And maybe he's not even working in a hospital, this time.

There so much room for error. The chances they will be using the same name were miniscule.

She tries anyway.

*/*/*

Charlie's heart attack comes her second year at college. His idea of exercise had been walking to the fishing boat; the pizza guy knew his regular order. Bella arranges the funeral, puts the house on the market.

Shortly after Charlie dies, Renee is diagnosed with adult-onset schizophrenia. It turns out her flightiness hadn't just been her personality. She refuses to taker her medication, and has to be continually hospitalized. Bella uses her father's insurance money to help Phil pay for her mother's care.

*/*/*

There's an agreement the Quileute people all sign. The paper is old and yellowing, and it is kept in a special binder by the elders of the tribe. Every young person who comes of age places their signature on this paper when they reach maturity, in order to become a full member of the tribe.

One day soon after Charlie dies, when Bella is still in town, Billy and Jacob come to her with this agreement. It's an offer to her, a chance at belonging. Of protection.

It's an honor.

All Bella has to do is agree that vampires are all monsters, that none should ever exist. That she would rather be dead, than be one of them.

Bella doesn't sign.

From that moment on, none of the tribe even greet her in passing.

*/*/*

There are no doctors named Cullen at any of the hospitals. Either they've left the country, or they changed identities.

Bella tries vainly to think of how else to find them, and realizes: she has no idea.

Well, Edward had promised her that he would disappear. And he had likely warned Alice away again, too.

Sometimes, Bella wishes that she could hate them.

*/*/*

When her opposite side begins to tingle, Bella starts to look for vampires on campus. When that doesn't work, she tries downtown. In a replay of her worst days without Edward (Part One), she spends one night after dark staring into the shadows.

After a lecture from a cop that reminds her far too much of Charlie, Bella stops.

All of the walking looking for vampires has made her blood flow, deepened the ache in her leg. She's taken three eight hundred Motrin for the burn in her other side, and it still makes her want to cry.

Bella knows what's happening to her, and that she needs help from someone.

Anyone at all.

*/*/*

Bella scratches into her skin hard enough to leave red lines with her nails as she struggles to type into the search engine of her laptop.

Not that it helps.

The Denali National Park is six million acres. There is one road. It's not a place you can just go wandering in to try and find a coven of vampires.

Not In her condition, anyway.

Furthermore, the Denali coven has no listed phone number, or address. How could they? That's not even their name, is it? It's the name of the _area_.

Darkness falls over Seattle, and downstairs Bella can hear the meowing of multiple felines. She feels like a fool, realizing how little she knew.

*/*/*

It's kind of funny that she didn't think of the Volturi earlier: after all, their coven terrified her so at the time. But perhaps she's placed them in the back of her Vampire closet. The circumstances had been … unpleasant.

Bella thinks that they would help her. Isn't she giving them what they wanted? The venom will either kill her … or change her.

But what if they want to punish the Cullens for leaving?

Bella thinks back to how Aro touched her, how astonished he seemed, that he could not read her. His fingers were so cold under her chin. He'd forced her to look up into his deep scarlet eyes.

Maybe he would help her.

She was still considering the idea when she fell asleep.

*/*/*

It feels like a bad case of the flu. She was burning from the inside out and covered with sweat. Logical thought was difficult, and her hands and feet were on fire.

She blinks through glassy eyes into the darkness. From downstairs, she can hear the sounds of a reality TV weight loss show far too clearly.

In a small, frightening moment of clarity Bella knows that it's too late. She tries to move her fingers, and fails.

The last contestant weighs in after Bella is lost to conscious thought.

*/*/*

She wakes up briefly in a delirium, convinced that someone has set fire to the apartment, but that it's too late for her to get out, because now she's ablaze, too.

Bella lets go of reality after that, certain only of death.

*/*/*

Just before Bella's heart stops beating, she learns that Brad has cheated on Ashley again on the Young and the Restless. Then she realizes that she can hear every sound each of the cats in her landlady's apartment. Chewing food. Using the litter boxes.

It's remarkable and also unpleasant.

Also, she can smell them now, even from upstairs.

Unfortunately, this doesn't stop her from eating her landlady.

*/*/*

She comes to with the woman's body at her feet. Bella is standing in her landlady's TV room and there are blood splatters on the walls and on her oversized nightshirt. The one she'd worn when she went, sick, to bed.

From the flu.

Three days ago.

She stares in despair at the dead lady's fuzzy slippers, garish pink zippered robe. There are five cats on her victim's sofa that have just borne witness to their guardian's demise. Two of them are grooming. None of them look very alarmed.

_I should have eaten the cats_, Bella thinks morosely.

*/*/*

Bella wishes she could drink, but she's (unfortunately for Mrs. Singer) already consumed the only liquid she can. She has no idea what to do. Her senses are going haywire, she keeps staring at dust motes and getting lost in the sounds all around her.

The electrical wiring makes a faint humming sound. There's a drip in the second floor bathroom, in the tub.

She's so hungry.

Bella thinks she might seriously eat someone else soon, and she needs to leave, but there's this … mess to consider.

God she wishes that she could call Carlisle. No, Emmett. He would help her without judging. Or Alice.

Why did they have to leave without even an email address?

And then, she remembers again. The Volturi.

*/*/*

Of course Mrs. Singer's desktop is from the stone age of computing. It is so slow and painful when Bella herself is so very fast. Thinking, moving.

She's afraid to leave to go to her own apartment, because the entrance is outside. What if someone comes to see Mrs. Singer? What if Bella smells someone else, and eats them, too?

And then she breaks the mouse. And the monitor, when she puts her beautiful fist straight through it in a fit of pique.

Mrs. Singer's body is looking … bad, and Bella really wishes that she could cry.

She's still so hungry.

*/*/*

Her landlady's phone is, fortunately, also ancient and therefore sturdy. Still, Bella tries hard to be careful.

She ends up eating the cats one by one, as she's working her way through international directory assistance. They're bitter and salty, like wasabi peanuts.

*/*/*

The operators are mostly, it seems, just connecting her at random to any place In Volterra. Bella wants to scream at someone. She can't even cry.

The third wrong number is for an art gallery in Volterra, which is run by a lovely man who doesn't deserve the thoughts Bella is having about the sound of his heart through the line. He gives her the main line for the fortress in exchange for a promise that she will see him if she comes to visit.

It's one promise she feels justified in breaking.

Bella tries the number. A human woman picks up, to Bella's despair. She's just finished the last cat, a fat Siamese (and a good hider) with half a tail.

But then she remembers how the Volturi had a human woman working there, and how Edward had said she wanted to be a vampire.

*/*/*

"Signorina, I have told you many times—"

Oh, the receptionist is frustrating and she talks so very, very slowly.

"Yes, I know," Bella says. "You don't know what I am talking about. Right?"

Silence. Bella sighs. "Look. Tell Aro that it's Bella Swan. He'll remember me, I think Tell him that I'm … brand new and very hungry, okay? Tell him that I just had dinner with my landlady and her cats. I'm trying so hard to keep this from becoming a large scale dinner party, understand, but I need some help from … experienced party planners. Got it?"

"You are speaking very quickly, miss … Something about a party?"

"I just ate my landlady. I have two days, max, before she stinks to high heaven and I have no idea what to do. Got it now?"

There's a long silence on the line. "What is your phone number?"

*/*/*

Aro calls her back thirty minutes later. "Isabella," he says, and she never thought she would be so very glad to hear his voice. "Is it truly you, Isabella Swan?"

Bella glares at the cats piled in the corner, at the sheet under which Mrs. Singer is doing terrible things. "Yes," she says with own newly melodic voice. She knows that he will hear it. "it's me."

She hears a clapping sound. "Oh how marvelous. I will be sending you a phone, dear Isabella. Fret not."

And the line goes dead.

*/*/*

Five hours later, there is an expensive cell phone delivered by a vampire to the address she never gave anyone, and the moment she turns it on, it rings. Bella stares at it, dumbfounded.

"I thought old people weren't good with technology," she says, feeling inexplicably nervous.

"Old people," Aro says. "Not old vampires."

"Why did you send me this?" she asks.

"Because it is encrypted," he says. "But mainly, because I wanted to."

*/*/*

He's delighted she's a vampire, so happy that it makes her kind of happy, too. If it weren't for her obvious problems, that is.

"I wasn't sure if our late receptionist's message was accurate. I'm afraid she hasn't been very reliable. I do apologize for any inconvenience, _bella_ Isabella."

Bella sighs. "No, it's true. I called because I … need help."

Aro's voice is serious. "Obviously, my dear. I will help you."

Bella wishes that vampires could cry. Her voice sounds strange when she says, "Thank you."

*/*/*

Aro tells her to consider him her vampire technical support, that he will walk her through everything.

Where is the vampire that did this to you, sweet Isabella?" he asks. "And yes, it is because I plan to kill him."

"He's been dead for five years."

There's a long pause. "Ah _mia cara_," Aro says," nothing about you is ever average, is it? And the Cullen coven, why did you not call them? Not that I am not flattered, of course."

Bella sighs. "Does it matter?"

Through the line, she can hear Aro hum. "Yes," he says, "but it can wait."

*/*/*

A black van comes in the middle of the night, and two expressionless vampires arrange everything. They take Mrs. Singer and her cats with not even a raised eyebrow.

Once they've arranged for the murder suicide (completer with ransacking, recorded screams, and trashing the place, they escort Bella into the van.

There's no conversation at all for hours, and Bella's convinced that the Volturi are kidnapping her. She won't protest: she owes them.

But then the van stops, and the vampire drop her off at an entrance to the Okanogan**-**WenatcheeNationalForest. One of them points into the trees.

"Go deep and stay there," he says, "Until you are sure you can handle it."

Bella stares at him, stunned. "Thanks," she says.

The vampire only nods. The sliding door slams, and the vehicle speeds away. Bella is left with only the sounds of the wilderness.

*/*/*

The phone rings twelve hours later. "You sound better."

"You didn't do what I thought you would," she says.

"I know," Aro says, and he sounds completely smug. "If you'd like, consider it my friendship toward Carlisle."

"I'm not one of his coven," Bella says.

"I am certain he considers you a daughter still," Aro says, "and you are still far more deserving than … some I could name."

"Edward." Bella says, with a sigh. "He's not … he's just stubborn."

"He is an imbecile."

"You don't know that," she says, wondering why she feels the need to defend him.

"Ah," Aro says, "but I do. _Prima facie_, dear Isabella. He left you, didn't he?"

*/*/*

Aro Volturi, leader of the vampire world, seems to want to … hang out on the phone with her. For hours.

"I'm certain you have better things to do," she says finally.

"That's debatable," Aro says. "Tell me, how long have you been a vampire now?"

She tells him. He hums. "I'm glad you're in the forest," he says.

"Why?"

"Because you are around no other vampires," he says.

Bella frowns, puzzled. "Why would that be a bad thing?"

He doesn't answer.

*/*/*

They talk again after she's eaten two brown bears. She's lying on the branch of an oak and staring at the stars, enjoying the wind brushing her body. Bears may be vegetarian, Bella thinks, but they are really good tofu.

She picks up on the first ring. "The woman," Aro says, "she couldn't have been your only meal. Most newborns need several in right away."

Bella considers faking bad reception and hanging up, but Aro sent her a satellite phone. Because of course he did. "Ms. Singer was a … collector," she says.

"Of what?"

"Cats."

There's a strange choking sound. "How many?"

"Twenty-one" At his silence, she narrows her eyes. "I was very hungry."

"I am certain you were," he says neutrally.

"You're going to make fun of me for this."

"Not at all, Isabella. I'm certain they had … a … very unique flavor."

"They were a little bitter after Mrs. Singer," Bella says, thinking about it. "And salty."

"Sweet Isabella vampire," Aro croons, and Bella can hear the grin in his voice. "The scourge of housecats the world over."

*/*/*

"You are alone," he says.

Bella thinks of Edward. How he would moan if he knew what she was. "It's better that way."

"I am alone, too, as it happens," he says. "I find it very strange."

Bella's feeling inexplicably flustered. "I didn't realize you were married."

Aro hums. "Well," he says, "she wasn't a … social person. She lived in a tower with a vampire that drugged her, until she finally committed suicide."

"That's awful. I'm so sorry."

"It's kind of a relief, actually," he says.

*/*/*

"Do you think I should get cats?" he asks her, "or do you think it would tempt the guard?"

"You're not that funny," she says.

"Ah," he says, "but I am very powerful, Isabella."

"And?"

"So people have to laugh anyway."

*/*/*

"I think we've been on the phone for four days," she says. "This is getting ridiculous. And it has to be expensive."

"We have," he says. As usual, he ignores the part of the comment he doesn't want to answer.. "You've murdered two bears, ten deer, and one mountain lion, even though they were Edward's favorite."

Bella frowns. "How do you _know_ that?"

"I know everything, sweet Isabella. Including that you never kissed him properly." Now he sounds smug. Again.

"Oh," she says, feeling stupid. "I forgot how you read people."

"Everyone but you," he says. There's a silence. "And the cats. Because someone ate them."

*/*/*

It's time for us to get off the phone," he says, one day later.

Bella feels strangely bereft. "I understand. "Thank you for everything you've done for me." She debates. "For your friendship."

There's a long silence. "Come to Volterra," he says. There's a tiny pause on the line. "Please."

Bella pictures herself trapped in an airplane. Eating the pilot. "It may be a little soon," she says.

"We have a plane. I can have the pilot get you in two days."

Bella stares into the middle distance, then looks at her feet. "I'm muddy," she says lamely.

"We have showers."

"Will you make me stay?"

He chuckles darkly. "Am I forcing you to speak with me now?"

Bella shivers. "What would I eat?" she asks. "Please, don't say tourists."

There's a silence in which Bella grows afraid she's offended him. Then Aro says, "Well, there are always the cats."

*/*/*

Volterra is still beautiful as a vampire, and a great deal less frightening. Bella walks into the throne room—passing another new receptionist. Aro rises from his throne-like chair. He's wearing a black suit with a dark grey shirt and he looks … Bella forces her eyes not to roam.

"Aro," she says, watching as his hands encase her own. She's glad she cannot blush.

He looks up from their joined hands, his eyes wide and startled.. "_Isabella._ You haven't kissed anyone else properly since Edward, either," he says.

Bella blinks, panicked. "You can read me?" she asks. All of her secrets, laid bare …

Aro's smile widens. "No," he says pleasantly. "But thank you for confirming it."

*/*/*

Marcus and Caius are oddly welcoming to her, as is everyone else. Jane's even polite, with impeccable manners, a lot more than Bella would have expected from a tween that hurts people for a living.

Aro gives her a room with a view of the countryside. It's a short vampire run to a nearby nature preserve.

"They stock it with cats," Aro tells her, very seriously. "Tabbies, calicos, Russian Blues."

Bella is having a hard time looking away from his face. "You're a very annoying vampire."

"And you came halfway across the world to see me," Aro says, cocking his head at her. "What does that say about your judgment, Isabella Swan?"

*/*/*

"You've been here six months," he says one day, "and everyone likes you."

"Caius doesn't."

Aro shrugs fluidly. "Caius hates everyone. You should stay, Isabella."

"Stay?"

He rubs a hand over her head. "Yes. As in, not leave. Become a member of my coven. _Stay._"

"But … Why? I don't have a function. Do you want me for your guard, is that it?" She's grown so close to Aro. The idea of calling him Master makes her feel nauseated.

Aro shakes his head fondly. "Women today," he says. "I miss the old days, when I could have bought you for some sheep." He narrows his eyes consideringly. "In your case, perhaps a flock."

"I'm serious."

"Fine. Do you need a function?"

"Maybe?" She wants a reason to stay. From him.

Aro watches her. "Well. I do have something in mind."

"What?"

"Official Volturi … cat taster."

*/*/*

In the end, of course, he wears her down. She stays.

*/*/*

The brothers have official business, and where they go, the guards follow. In the audience chamber, Aro asks Bella to stay, to speak to him when there are free moments. When he is occupied, she watches, or speaks to Marcus.

On Marcus's bad days, when he stares into space, and on Caius's, when he snarls at thin air, Bella feels keenly her lack of a place.

She is not guard, to stand silently and await orders, nor is she a wife, who is there because she is close to her beloved.

_Oh, but aren't you? _A small, mocking voice inside her thoughts taunts her.

She stares at Aro, watches his greeting of visitors, his handling of the accused, observes his long, lean movements, his grace … and she feels adrift.

Why is she here?

*/*/*

Three years pass, and Bella begins to love Volterra. It's the hub for all vampire activity, and she likes that. The city is both beautiful and quiet, and (comments about Bambi and Thumper notwithstanding) the coven has welcomed her more than she could have imaged.

Sometimes she suspects that Aro spoke with them, but then she dismisses the idea. Why would he do such a thing?

Each day at sunset, she stands under an overhang of the roof. The pink and red of this particular day's ending is even more beautiful than usual.

She thinks of Aro.

Bella knows that she should just ask him. But she's afraid. Of his deflections. Of him, making a joke of her feelings.

Of losing what she already has.

*/*/*

They're walking and Aro is complaining about some coven when she finally works up the nerve.

"Why do you hold my hand?" she asks. It seems like he's always touching her. It's starting to drive her insane.

Aro cocks his head to one side. "I like to feel you, Isabella."

"But why?" she presses.

He has a strange, pained expression. "You're quiet," he says finally.

"Oh." _Of course_. She understands, and it feels like her world is ending.

She does have a function, after all.

Bella Swan is in Volterra so that Aro can have a restful companion.

She forces a smile. "I'm glad we're friends, Aro." And she is. She just wishes it was enough.

Aro's eyes narrow. "Isabella, I—"

"I should go hunt," she says quickly, then laughs, a little hollowly. "Cats to kill."

She shakes his hand loose and strides away, leaving Aro staring after her.

*/*/*

_Bella destroys every deer she can find that night, leaving a bloody, pulpy mess of herself and the forest. Once she gets back and showers, she begins packing her bags. Bella remembers how she begged Edward to stay, begged him to keep her forever, wanted so badly for him to give her what she needed. _

_Spineless. She won't do it as a vampire. _

_Not even for Aro._

*/*/*

Marcus looks at her knowingly when she gives her excuses, but Aro just looks forlorn. "Why would you want to leave?" he asks.

"I want to travel," she says. "I'm still a new vampire."

"You came here as a newborn," he says, reluctantly agreeing. "But you're one of us now."

_Not quite, _she thinks. But she forces a smile. It's not Aro's fault he doesn't feel what she does. Even though she wants to hate him for it. "I'll be back," she finds herself saying.

"When?"

_When I'm over you. _"Bella shrugs and sighs. "I'm not certain."

"This is a mistake, Aro," Caius says.

"Hush, brother. If this is what Bella needs, then this is what she will have." But Aro looks pained. "You have your phone?"

"Of course," she lies.

On the third throne, Marcus sighs and looks away.

*/*/*

One year bleeds into another and then more, and she does not return to Volterra. It seems that Aro's impression on her does not fade with time.

Bella tries to take a lover in Argentina, but all it does is remind her of Aro.

"You're mourning someone," he says, after they finally give up.

Bella shrugs. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

Bella looks out the window and stares off into the distance until he's gone.

*/*/*

One night in France, she has a daydream so vivid that she feels almost human. She was in the throne room watching an execution, and instead of turning away, she watched.

Aro was fierce and terrible, a savage force god of vengeance. Instead of revulsion, though, all she felt was desire.

She wonders that night if vampires can go insane.

*/*/*

Sixty years later, she goes back to Forks to visit Charlie's grave and runs into the Cullen family. They go by the name Goodman now, although their cover stories are pretty much the same.

The grave looks remarkably old, but the Cullens seem exactly the same.

They're even in the same house, although it's been remodeled. It's all so surreal, just like the way they look at her at first, standing out together on their front porch. Staring at her.

Finally, takes pity on them. "I'm not a ghost, if that's the problem."

"No … it's not that," Carlisle says. "It's just …"

"We've been to Volterra," Alice says. "Bella … It's Aro."

*/*/*

Edward is with a vampire in the Amazonian coven, and thankfully missing.

"We thought it was time to mend fences," Carlisle says. "Thankfully, the brothers agreed."

Bella nods. "I'm glad. He is very fond of you."

Carlisle looks pained. "He's not himself, Bella. Marcus says he misses you."

I'm quiet for him." It's a painful truth, but she feels like maybe she's accepted it. As long as she doesn't have to see him.

*/*/*

"Will you stay?" Alice asks.

Bella smiles at her. After so long, she's nearly willing to let bygones be. "Don't you know?"

"I know you're not happy," Alice says. "You put on a good show, but Jasper told me."

Bella stares out into the forest where she once walked as a human. "I'm content."

"Are you?"

"As much as I can be." Bella stares down, wrestling with a desire to finally tell someone. She wishes she could cry. "Aro …" she trails off. Shakes her head. "He was very kind to me," she says instead. "As a newborn. And after."

Alice hums. "Would you like to know how it ends?"

*/*/*

"He's hurting," Jasper says. "I didn't know why, until I saw you again."

Bella frowns in confusion. She hadn't meant to cause Aro pain. "He got used to me," she says.

"He wouldn't stop talking about you, once he saw us."

"We thought he would rip off our heads for leaving you, once he read Carlisle, but instead he just asked us if we'd seen you. If we knew where you were. If you were well."

Bella thinks guiltily of the phone she'd left in Volterra. She'd known he would call, and that she couldn't bear it. "We were close," she says. "Friends."

Emmett snorts, "Friends with—" Rosalie slaps him on the back of his head.

Carlisle chuckles. "No, Bella. Aro has no female friends. He's an ancient man in modern clothes. There's family, and then there's everyone else."

*/*/*

In the end, and at Carlisle (and oddly, Jasper's) urging, Bella decides to go back to Volterra. She may be Aro's sister, or perhaps his tag-along niece, but she can't bring herself to stay away. Not after hearing the Cullens speak about Volterra.

She walks in through the gate on an overcast day at the beginning offspring. Seeing it again, the red stone, the steep cobblestoned streets after so long, she realizes that it has somehow become her home.

*/*/*

Bella walls her heart off into a place where it can be safe. Maybe she'll take it out, from time to time, she thinks, alone on the rooftop.

Bella takes a deep breath that she doesn't need before entering the throne room quietly by the side door. Aro is there, and how had she forgotten? How could she possibly have not remembered how riveting he is?

*/*/*

And she shouldn't have come. Bella stares. There's a small beautiful blonde vampire behind Aro's throne, in just the place where Bella used to stand. For a brief, blinding moment, Bella wants to rip her head off and set it ablaze.

Then she stops herself. Aro deserves happiness. Her own, she has come to understand, was doomed the first time she laid eyes on Edward Cullen.

Oh, she is a fool to have returned, to have laid eyes on him again. Now she'll never be able to leave.

_Am I forcing you to talk to me now?_ He'd asked. But how could she have resisted?

Marcus's head swivels slowly, his eyes following invisible lines only he can see. When his eyes meet hers, he stands.

*/*/*

Caius stands, too, as she approaches. Both of them embrace her then, for the first time, ever, and Bella swallows down venom and the inexplicable urge to cry.

"He's a very stupid vampire," Marcus whispers. "Be gentle."

Bella nods at him, even though he doesn't make sense.

And then they leave. She's left alone, standing there, staring at Aro.

"Hello," Bella tries. "I'm back."

She hasn't finished speaking when he's on her, slamming her back into the marble of the chamber's wall.

And somehow … he's kissing her.

*/*/*

Aro kisses like he does everything else, intensely. He stands with his legs planted, his hands pushed into her hair. It's somehow both deliberate and frenzied.

Bella can't do anything but take it. His mouth is wet and dirty and she's grateful that everyone has left.

Including the little blonde vampire.

"You're real," Aro says, in a wondering voice. "I thought I would go mad."

Bella runs her hand over him uncomprehendingly. Why is he doing this? His scent is making her dizzy, making her lose focus. "I don't understand. Isn't she …"

"She?" Then, Aro realizes. And laughs disbelievingly. "You thought I was with her?"

"I thought she was … your new .. companion." Bella looks away.

Aro kisses her again, harder, almost brutally. "No," he says. "Isabella. She is not. Could never be.

"Why not?"

Aro laughs, a rueful sound. "Because my new wife, Bella, it's you."

*/*/*

She nearly takes his head off, and he thinks it's _funny_.

"How long have you known?" she asks, furious.

Aro grimaces at her expression, but his twitching lips give him away. "You're upset."

"How _long_?"

"Since you told me about the cats," he says. "And I had an unhealthy obsession with you while you were human." He stares, wide-eyed. But he's _grinning_. "Now you're definitely angry."

"Angry? Why should I be upset with you?" Bella demands, hitting him. Hard. "I mean, it's not as if I loved you and _forced myself to leave you_."

"You told me your had your phone." He breathes in at the crook of her neck. "I wanted you to be certain, and you were still so new … I felt it was unfair to tie you down. Caius told me I was being an idiot."

"He was right," Bella informs him.

*/*/*

Aro is nude from the waist up, and she has on only underwear. They're in his bed. In his bedroom.

"You never let me in here before," she says, feeling dizzy. The light from the window has faded. Sunset is over.

"I didn't think I would let you out again," he says.

Bella sighs. "I wanted to."

"So innocent," Aro says sadly. "You could have had me any time."

*/*/*

They're both nude now, and it's full dark. He's brought her to a sobbing orgasm for the second time before he stares into her eyes, "You know I'm a murderer, Isabella. Also, I am terribly manipulative."

"I know you have terrible timing," she says.

"This is your to run," he says seriously." Before I take it away." He runs a hand up her leg and bends her knee, staring down at her. "I'm too possessive to let you go again, Isabella. Please, understand that."

Bella wonders if something is wrong with her, that she wants him even more now. "I think you're a form of mental illness," she says, honestly.

"Good," he says, and kisses her.

*/*/*

He's savage, and demanding, and Bella is certain, afterward, that the entire castle has heard her. She's also quite sure Aro intended it that way. Again, Bella finds she doesn't mind. "I have my flaws, too," she tells him, after they're done.

Aro traces a hand over her side, circling a hipbone with his fingertips. "I know."

Bella blinks at him. "That isn't what you're supposed to say."

He rasises an eyebrow, looking amused. "Isn't it, _cara_? Then you are without flaw."

She huffs. "Fine. What?"

Aro smiles, captures her lips again and makes her wait for her answer. Finally, he leans back and replies. "You're terribly cruel," he says. "To cats."

END

*/*/*

**A/N:** I've had this idea in my head for a while. I've seen the scar being used other places, but I wanted to combine it with the Volturi somehow, and there is my whole obsession with Aro … anyway. It finally came out in one day at the computer and here we are. Thank you for reading and please review!


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